Saturday, January 10, 2015

Sketch of the Week

January 10th, 2015

Aden Young

When I'm not working in my studio or drawing live at an event, which my wife will tell you, is not often. I binge watch series on Netflix or On-Demand.

If any of you are like me and my wife, binge watching has become our obsession. Our taste in shows differ but there are a few series we like to watch together.

One of these is Rectify. Currently season one and two are on Netflix and I am fascinated with this show. The story is dark and disturbing, the acting is superb. The main character, Daniel Holden, is played by Aden Young. An amazing portrayal of a convicted killer who has spent 20 years on death row only to be let out on new DNA evidence. His innocence is still in question and... well I don't want to go to far with the story. Let me say that at the time of this posting I only have 2 episodes left of season 2 to watch and I most surely will be disappointed to realise that I will have to wait to binge watch season 3, whenever that does come to Netflix..... damn.

My wife likes this drawing but says it is a skinnier version of him and now that I look at it, I should have made his shoulders bigger.... damn ;-)

When you are done with work, turn on Netflix and watch this show. Let me know what you think about it.﻿

Sunday, January 4, 2015

I've been online since 1994, started my first website in 1995 and for the most part (minus the hiccups of life) have been online ever since.

I only recently, in the last 4-5 years, have started to get more involved with social media. I started, as most do, on Facebook. I started my Caricatoons Facebook page a few years after joining Facebook. I have joined Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, Youtube and most recently and reluctantly, LinkedIn.

Google + and Pinterest lost my interest quickly. Mainly because I didn't have the time to devote to them. My Youtube channel sucks and unless I devote more time on it, it will remain.. sucky. I blog, but too infrequently. I spend a lot of time staring at Instagram and although I enjoy it, it really does nothing for my business. I have 1500+ followers on Twitter and I am positive that at least 100 of those are real people. My facebook business page is fun and it is nice to see all my friend and family make nice comments about my drawings, but what else does it offer me?

If I broke each social media platform down and ask myself "what do these sites offer that help to boost my business?" I can honestly say that I have no freaking idea. Except for one.

Only one platform has consistently helped boost my business with the least amount of effort and that was a surprise to me, initially. After really looking at who was on this social media platform, I was surprised that I was surprised.. lol.

Yes LINKEDIN.

A lot of my work comes from the Corporate sector. Live drawing at corporate events and trade shows, cartoons for blogs and websites, caricature drawings that are used to promote teams and projects, retirement gifts, drawing live at weddings that were booked from Wedding Event Planners and caricature videos used at award ceremonies. Where does the corporate sector reside online in social media. LinkedIn!

I find that a lot of the commissions I get for other "gift" caricatures and personal live event bookings also come from individuals seeing my work on LinkedIn. This is where I need to be and focus most of my limited social media time here.

Having said that, not all of my work comes from LinkedIn. Most of the work I get from using social media comes from LinkedIn but that does not mean most of my work comes from LinkedIn. Most of my work comes from 2 other "places" which have nothing to do with social media.

One of these is internet search engines. I code my own website, and even though it is just a basic site with nothing fancy, I am able to use meta-tags and descriptions properly so that when you search for "Caricatures Vancouver" or something along that line, I usually pop up on the first page.

The last and most important thing is something everyone needs to strive for if they want to succeed in anything. This is where I get most of my work from. It's taken a while to build this up but it is something that I am most proud of.

Most of the commissions that I draw and most of the live events that I work, come from someone talking to someone else about something that I drew for them or from the experience that they had with me at an event where I was drawing at.

I'm no social media expert. Far from it and most of my work doesn't even come from my involvement with social media. I can only comment on my own personal experiences so far. Maybe in the future I will devote more time to other platforms, but for now, I'll keep doing what works for me.

About Me

I am a self taught artist living in beautiful Maple Ridge, British Columbia.
I have been married since 1987, have two grown boys and
I am also a foster parent to special needs foster children.
www.caricatoons.ca